Growing Up and Growing More Family Friendly Again

Guest column by the MIT Comparative Media Studies program:

It is no secret that the WWE is starting to become more mellow and more grown up, pushing the envelope less. The current WWE is a lot more clean cut than the WWE of the 90s. There are a lot fewer cheap heat angles - no necropholia, no gay wedding bashing. The obscenity is for punctuation ("..... DAMN!") instead of every other word, which is fine by me. But they haven't taken a step backwards. They've taken a step forwards. This is definately no kids show. Not with Melina's ring entrance or bloody Hell in a Cell matches. This is much more grown up in that they feel the need to act out to get attention less.

John Cena is the perfect baby face. He even salutes his enemies when they won't shake his hand. He's patriotic. He's studly. He's Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels rolled into one, but he's his own thing too. He sets the tone for the WWE along with classic wrestlers like Michaels and The Undertaker and Chris Benoit and completely uncontroversial, painfully dull heroes like Lashley and Batista. Today's wrestling has the elements I liked about old wrestling - some silly gimmicks like a country western Asian guy or greasers with a roller girl or an Irishman with a leprechaun - and a classier feel - but it also has the things I valued about its adolescent period - breathtaking high spots and some fun play with sexuality. There are things I would badly like to see them work on. I feel like they're still way behind in terms of seeing women as equals rather than play things. They've gone with such uncontroversial characters in some cases that I'm not sure who the heck they are (Batista, Lashley.) But I think the hour long HBK/Cena match last week and the long term angle they're building with Mr. Kennedy are some of the best stuff I've seen the WWE do in a while and I'm really taken with it.